


J2 Hurt/Comfort Indulgence #10: Intoxication

by embroiderama



Series: J2 Hurt Comfort Indulgences [10]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 15:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something was going on with Jensen even before he got drunk, but now he's very drunk and very fucked up and Jared needs to figure it out. And fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	J2 Hurt/Comfort Indulgence #10: Intoxication

**Author's Note:**

> This is, at very long last, the final story in this collection of stories written for [](http://10-hurt-comfort.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://10-hurt-comfort.livejournal.com/)**10_hurt_comfort**. (Not a series, just a collection of "non-AU" J2 h/c fics.) I started this story in 2009 (*smh*), and it's set during an earlier season, after Jensen had been living in Jared's house in Vancouver. Call it old-fashioned J2.

Jared hadn't been asleep when Jim called. A month living on his own without Jensen, and the place still felt too empty and still once the dogs fell asleep. To dispel the disquieting quiet, Jared sat up watching TV; even games weren't as fun without a friend to play against. When his cell rang at 1 a.m., Jared was torn between being worried that something disastrous had happened and being annoyed that it was probably Chad or somebody else who didn't care what the fuck time it was.

Jim's name on the caller ID was a surprise, and his voice was rough and tired against the music in the background. "You know I'm an old man right?"

"Uh--" Jared didn't know what he was supposed to say.

"I oughta be in bed by now, so I need you to come on down here and take care of Jensen."

"Jensen?" Jared snapped off the TV and stood up. "What--is he okay?"

"Oh, he's fine, but he's drunker than a fish swimmin' in whiskey, so I'm not about to leave him alone." Jim was quiet for a moment, and Jared could hear the noise in the background go distant. "I think something happened with his girl, but he's not talking much. Just tagged along with me and some of the crew guys and started ordering doubles."

"Shit." Jared wiped his hand across his face and gathered up his keys and wallet, heading for the door. "He didn't say anything to me."

"I've been noticing that." Jim's voice was quiet and sober, and Jared really didn't want to be having this conversation. He got in his car and started the ignition, cranking down the volume on the radio when it blared Katy Perry in his face.

"Y'all at McGinty's?"

"Where else?"

"Be there in fifteen."

~~~

Jared couldn't see Jensen when he walked into the bar, but he could take a guess as to where his friend was sitting. Jim sat at a high table with a bunch of the crew guys, and while they perched comfortably on their stools they were all looking over at the booth beside their table. Jared could see about half a dozen glasses on the booth's table and the top of somebody's head tilting against the wall. As he walked closer, raising his hand to wave at Jim and the guys, he saw the lights from above highlighting the red in the man's hair. Jensen.

Jensen was sitting sideways on the wooden bench of the booth, his legs up, knees bent so he fit lengthwise. His hand was wrapped loosely around a glass that contained ice and some whiskey-tinted water. He looked asleep or unconscious, but Jared knew he was awake, just riding out the calm of his drunkenness, letting the movement behind his eyelids lull away whatever was fucking with his brain. They'd gotten drunk together enough times, more than enough times for Jared to know why Jensen liked to close his eyes and sit still in the middle of a party.

Still, this wasn't much of a party, and it usually took Jensen a good long time to get to this point. Jensen didn't drink to get fucked up. Except according to Jim he had, and why the hell would Jim lie? Jared shook his head and turned away from Jensen.

"Hey man." He nodded at Jim. "Thanks for calling me."

"No problem. Like I said, I didn't want to stay here and close down the place, but it didn't seem right to leave him like that."

"Yeah. You can go on ahead. I'll get his lazy ass home."

Jim's gaze slid past Jared and over to Jensen's still form. When he looked back at Jared his eyes were sharp despite the empty bottle in his hand and the one in front of him. "You gonna do your best to get to the bottom of this?"

"I'll try. First step is getting him home without making a mess of my truck."

"Good luck with that."

Jared nodded and turned back to Jensen's table. He flagged down the waitress to order a glass of water then sat down on the empty bench seat across from Jensen and watched him for a moment. He could only _really_ look at Jensen at times like this when Jensen wouldn't see him, wouldn't look back, wouldn't see the feelings that Jared usually kept so contained. The shape of Jensen's face, outlined by neon and shadows, was perfect, and yet Jared could see the exhaustion too, the tension that hadn't really gone away in a while. It was time to start figuring out what was going on.

"Hey, man," he started off, just a normal speaking volume in case Jensen was playing possum rather than lost in his head. Jensen's eyelids flickered briefly but he stayed where he was, so Jared upped the ante, kicking Jensen's seat hard enough to make the wood shake under him.

"Mmmf." Jensen opened his eyes and straightened up. "Fuck." He looked straight ahead then turned to see Jared. "When d'you get here?"

"Few minutes ago. Jim called me."

"Why the hell'd he do that?"

"He wanted me to take your drunk ass home. Dude, we have fucking early morning flights, why'd--" Jared cut himself off. There was no point trying to get any kind of clarity from Jensen in the state he was in. Honesty, on the other hand, might be possible if Jared played his cards right. "Nevermind." He pushed the sweating cold glass of water across the table at Jensen. "Drink some of this so maybe you'll feel a little less like dying tomorrow morning."

Jensen turned around to put his feet on the floor, his back to the booth rather than the wall, and took the glass in his hand, every movement slow and deliberate. He took a sip, then a couple of gulps and then stopped hard. He pressed the back of one hand to his mouth and closed his eyes, fumbling as he tried to set the glass back down on the table. Jared reached out to take it, but when their fingers brushed together Jensen jerked away, pulling his hand back to wrap around the edge of the gummy table.

"You okay? You need to hit the men's room?"

Jensen shook his head slightly and opened his eyes. "No, m'okay."

"You sure? I seriously don't want you to hork in my truck."

"I said I'm okay." The words were too loud, too hard, but still the clearest thing Jensen had said all night.

"Okay then." Jensen stood up and pulled his keys out of his pocket. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Jared reached a hand out to give give Jensen some help up, but Jensen ignored him, instead pushing himself up with his hands flat on the wood of the bench and table. He closed his eyes and wavered a little on his feet, and then he was moving toward the door, leaving Jared behind. Jared shook his head and followed; he wished he knew what the hell was going on in Jensen's inebriated brain. Matter of fact, he wished he knew what was going on in Jensen's brain while he was still sober that motivated him to go out to the bar instead of chilling at home.

~~~

Jared kept the music low and just focused, or tried to focus, on driving home rather than on looking over at Jensen in the passenger seat of his truck. Finally, sitting at a light, he couldn't help himself anymore. "You okay over there?"

"Mmmnyeah," Jensen replied ever so fluently.

"Just say the word if you need me to pull over."

Jared pulled away from the light and drove another few blocks before Jensen smacked his shoulder with one flailing hand. "Word," he mumbled, leaning toward the window and gripping the door handle with his right hand. "Jared, _fuck_." He ground out the words from behind his teeth.

Jared chanced a quick glance in his rearview mirror and pulled over on the side of the quiet nighttime street. Jensen fumbled with the lock and pushed the door open, heaving between his knees before he could get all the way out of the truck. Jared got the truck into park and scrambled to undo his seat belt, but before he could get around to the passenger side to help, Jensen had fallen out through the door, misjudging the height of the step or losing track of his legs and landing on his hands and knees in the sparse dry grass and gravel.

He was still heaving and coughing up whiskey and coke and what looked like nachos. Jared turned his head away, beating down his own gag reflex before he joined Jensen on the ground. Jensen spat and then sat up, easing back on his haunches and leaning against the side of the truck. He brushed the palms of his hands on his thighs and winced.

"Hey, how bad is it?" Jared stepped around the puddle of puke and bent down in front of Jensen. "Let me see." He took Jensen's hands in his own and frowned at the bits of gravel pressed into the skin, blood seeping from a few scratches. Jensen pulled his hands back and sat there still and quiet below Jared. "How are your knees?"

"Okay." Jensen shrugged. "Hurts a little." He tried to push up to his feet and wobbled before he could get even a quarter of the way up. "Fuck," he sighed, hanging his head to keep from looking at Jared. "Can you help me?"

"Yeah, of course. Come on, you disgusting asshole." Jensen flinched at the words Jared had intended as a joke, and Jared just pulled him up, squeezing his shoulder while he held him for a minute to make sure he was steady enough to stand. He helped Jensen back into the truck and started to pull Jensen's seatbelt over him until Jensen batted his hands away. The side of the road was no place for a discussion so Jared got back in and concentrated on getting them home.

When Jared finally pulled into the driveway and took the keys out of the ignition, Jensen peered out through the windshield. "Don't live here anymore," he murmured.

"I'm aware of that. But obviously you need a babysitter, so you're staying here tonight. Come on."

Jensen was marginally steadier than he'd been outside the bar, and Jared managed to steer him up the steps, past the confused dogs and into the big master bathroom. Jensen's hands looked like hell so Jared helped him pull his jacket off and pushed him down to sit on the closed toilet lid. He brought a wet, soapy washcloth and his first-aid kit over and sat on the floor at Jensen's feet. He started with Jensen's right hand, using the washcloth and occasionally tweezers to get the gravel and stray pieces of ground-up glass out of Jensen's skin.

Jensen barely reacted, still numbed enough by the alcohol to just sit gently swaying in place while Jared worked on him. "What's going on with you?" Jared asked. He knew it wasn't entirely fair, questioning Jensen when he was out of it, but trying to get anywhere with Jensen when he was sober was useless anymore and there was no way things could continue as they were. "Huh?" He shook Jensen's shoulder a little until Jensen looked at him. "Why'd you go get wasted tonight?"

"Why not?" Jensen's shoulders slumped and he dropped his chin down to his chest for a moment before looking up again like a man who'd just been startled awake.

Jared kept working, cleaning out the tiny cuts with alcohol pads. "What's going on with you and Danni, huh?"

"Nothin."

"Nothing's wrong?"

"Nothin's nothin."

Jared turned that one over in his head while he dabbed antibiotic ointment onto Jensen's hand and wrapped the worst of it with gauze. "You guys broke up?"

Jensen nodded sullenly.

"Man, why didn't you tell me? You were all up in my face making sure I was okay when Sandy broke up with me, and you don't even tell me?" Jared stood up to re-wet his washcloth then sat down on Jensen's other side, still waiting for an answer. "Jensen. Seriously."

"S'not the same."

Jared shook his head at Jensen's sullen face and nudged his left arm until he let Jared get a hold of his hand. This one wasn't as bad, but there was still a nasty scrape on the heel of his hand, road dirt ground in. "How's it so different? So you two weren't engaged, but you love her. And she dumped you?"

Jensen shook his head. "Me. I did."

"That doesn't--did she _do_ something?"

Jared kept working, scrubbing gently at the palm of Jensen's hand with the washcloth, and when he heard Jensen make a small sound he looked up in time to pull Jensen down to the floor and flip open the lid of the toilet. He didn't have much left in him, and Jared had seen much worse not very long ago so he stayed on the floor next to Jensen and kept a steadying hand on his back. When Jensen was panting more than retching, Jared flushed the toilet and helped Jensen move over to lean against the wall.

"I'm gonna get you something to drink, okay?"

Jensen just closed his eyes, so Jared unfolded himself from the floor and jogged downstairs. He grabbed a bottle of orange Gatorade, Jensen's favorite that he kept around even though he couldn't stand it himself, and went back upstairs. Jensen was probably about ten minutes away from passing out, and Jared wanted to figure out what was going on before he missed the window of opportunity for drunken confessions.

Back upstairs, Jared sat down on the tile floor again with his knees bumping up against Jensen's and twisted open the bottle before handing it to Jensen who took it with his gauze covered right hand. Jared took Jensen's left hand again and went back to work on the dirty scrapes. It wasn't nearly as bad as the right hand, and Jared worked gently, massaging as much as cleaning. "Tell me," he said as gently as he could, "tell me why you broke it off. I know you love her." Saying that hurt just a little but Jared pushed it aside.

Jensen nodded his head then shook it, his eyes closed. "Not th'right way. Not her."

Jared stomped down on the little surge of hope inside himself and kept his voice steady. "Somebody else?"

Jensen sniffled and nodded. He was listing to the side, and Jared knew he'd better get Jensen to bed if he didn't want to carry him there so he tucked his shoulder in under Jensen's arm, lifted him up and steered him out of the bathroom. He sat Jensen down on the side of the bed and held him up when he looked ready to sack out on the spot. The idea that Jensen was so messed up over somebody else--somebody Jared didn't even know about--that he'd break up with Danni just didn't sit right. Jared shook Jensen's shoulder. " _Who_ , Jen?"

Jensen rolled his eyes and leaned into Jared's hand. "Who else?" he whispered. Then he sighed heavily and looked straight at Jared with an edge of fear behind the cloudiness of his gaze. "You."

Jared froze and in his shock let Jensen fall to the bed. "Wha--Jensen?" He jostled Jensen's shoulder again, but he was too far gone to wake up. With Jensen's words going round and round in his head, Jared pulled off Jensen's shoes and loosened his jeans then got him under the covers. He'd pressed the subject with Jensen in search of truth, but now he didn't know if he could believe what he'd heard. Jensen was trashed after all, drunker than Jared had seen him in years. Drunk enough to be flirting with alcohol poisoning.

Jared wedged a couple of pillows behind Jensen's back in an attempt to keep him from rolling over and choking to death, just in case there was anything left inside him to puke up, but he still couldn't help worrying. He knew that Jensen was most likely fine, that he'd wake up with a wicked hangover, nothing Jared hadn't subjected himself to more than once. But Jensen had just mumbled out the possibility of something Jared had long consigned to impossibility, and Jared wasn't ready to risk that in any way.

A glance at his phone told him it was almost 4am, and whatever else happened neither of them was going to make their 7am flight back to LA. He sent a few texts to get the tickets cancelled and make their excuses then went downstairs to let the dogs have a quick run outside so that they wouldn't have to wake him up at six. He thought about going to get some sleep in the guest room, Jensen's old room, but he couldn't do it. Back in his bedroom, he left the pillows in place next to Jensen and climbed in on the other side of the big bed. He wasn't going to take advantage of what Jensen had told him, but he had to stay close by. If nothing else, he'd be on hand to give Jensen some water and Advil when he woke up

Jared wasn't sure if he'd be able to sleep at all with so many questions and hopes and worries churning through his head, but he'd been up for almost 24 hours and before he knew it he slipped off into sleep.

When Jared woke to the sound of pitiful moaning, the bedroom was full of light and Jared felt rested enough that he thought it had to be late morning, maybe almost noon. He looked over to the other side of the bed and saw Jensen sitting up against the headboard with a pillow pressed over his face. He tried to pull the side of the pillow back, but Jensen just gripped it tighter.

"What are you trying to do, smother yourself?"

"Uh-huh."

"How about I open up the blinds and make it even brighter in here?"

"Fuck you." Jensen's words were clear despite being muffled by the pillow, and Jared decided to take pity on him. He got up and pulled the light-blocking drapes closed so that light only filtered in at the top and bottom of the windows, leaving the room dim and shadowy. He detoured into the bathroom and picked up the bottle of Advil when he was done.

"I think you can put the pillow down now. The evil light is mostly gone."

Jensen slowly moved the pillow away from his face and blinked his eyes open. "Jesus," Jensen moaned, rubbing his temples. He took the bottle of water and the pills Jared held out then rubbed his hands over his face and looked at the frayed gauze and shallower scrapes. "What the hell?"

"You don't remember what happened?" Jared held his breath, waiting to see what Jensen might recall.

"I don't remember being hit by a truck. Wait, the bar?" Jensen looked over at Jared, and his eyes went wide, his face paler than it had been. "Oh, shit. Shit, Jared, if I'm remembering right I didn't mean what I said. I was fucked up, I--"

Jared swallowed hard and pushed down the temptation to go along, to let Jensen dismiss what he'd said as drunken ramblings. He hadn't thought he'd ever have an opportunity to be honest with Jensen, and he wasn't going to let this one pass him by. "I think you meant it," he said, his voice firm. Jensen's eyes went wide and he opened his mouth to argue, but Jared kept talking. "I hope you meant it. I've been trying _not_ to feel this way about you but I might as well try to be five feet tall. I don't know how, and I don't even really remember what it was like. You know?"

Jensen nodded his head slowly then rose to his knees and moved across the bed to sit very near. "How did we not know? How did both of us--" Jensen motioned across the inches between them. "How did we not know?"

"Either we're both really great actors or we're both idiots. Or some combination of the two."

Jensen leaned in, resting his forehead on Jared's t-shirt covered chest. "I want to kiss you but I'm afraid I'm going to hurl again."

Jared ruffled his fingers through the soft hair at the back of Jensen's neck and marveled at how different it was to touch him like this, even when they'd already been deep inside each other's space for years. "Later, then," he said, thinking of the rest of the weekend that stretched out in front of them now that they'd ditched their plans in LA. It was going to be a great weekend, the best one ever. The first of many.


End file.
